A clever and wiley creature lives in the Promyvion Holla Spire. This creature bears a slight resemblance to the Treants that roam the regions surrounding Holla, but its attacks are brutal and savage. If you can prove your metal against this creature, great will be your reward...

How do I start this ENM?

The first thing to do is to head to Ru'Lude Gardens in Jeuno and talk to Vanessa @ (H-10). You will have to have completed the first cut-scenes for the Promyvion chapters of Chains of Promathia, or else she will not talk to you. If she will not talk to you, see our Promyvion guide for help.

Vanessa will give you several options for different spires. Select "Spire of Holla" to get the Censer of Abanonment key item. You can technically get all of the censers for each spire without causing any problems, so I would highly recommend just getting them all every chance you get.

After talking to Vanessa head to Promyvion-Holla. Ascend the tower as usual (going through the Memory Recepticles) to arive at the Holla Spire (up to this point, it will be exactly like making a Promyvion run).

At the Web of Recollections in Spire Holla, select "Simulant". Be sure that EVERYONE in the party selects it at roughly the same time, or else some of your party will be left behind.

ENM's Attacks

You can think of this ENM as a mini-Spire-Holla boss battle. The Cogitator has all the same attacks as his boss big brother, except he is considerably less powerful. Each of his special moves are detailed below.

Negative Whirl : Damage area attack

Empty Cutter : Damage attack, one target, utsusemi blocks

Trinary Absorbtion : Drain, one target

Trinary Tap : Steals 3 status effects, one target, annoying

Stygian Vapor : Area effect plague and hate reset

Shadow Spread : Area effect curse and sleep.

Throughout the fight, he will spawn offspring (Weepers). I would actually recommend ignoring these (unless they are killing a mage) and focus on the Cogitator. When the Cogitator dies, you've won, so why waste effort on his weak spawns?

General Strategies

BRING POISON POTIONS AND HOLY WATER! By far the most important thing in this battle is to have something to combat Shadow Spread. Being poisoned will keep you awake, so start the battle by taking a poison potion. Curse is removed by using holy water. I personally would recommend a minimum of 2 poison potions and a stack of holy water for this battle. Chances are, you will only ever need 1 poison potion and a couple of holy waters, but it is far better to be prepared just in case things go sour.

I would recommend not eating any food before this battle, and not to use any special abilities that you don't want the ENM to have. Trinary Tap is a special attack that sucks off 3 status effects from the person he attacks. If you have just eaten Sole Sushi, and he uses this move on you, he could easily pull off all your accuracy and strength boosts. If you have a SMN give everyone Stoneskin, and he takes it, then he becomes more difficult to hurt. Basically, the rule of thumb is, don't give yourself any special abilities or boosts you wouldn't want the enemy to use against you.

This boss ultimately isn't very tough, but he does have nasty hate reset. For this reason alone I'd recommend having two vokers in your party. Hate control can sometimes be an issue if you have someone nuking him.

Anima can be used, however it is not recommended unless this is the ONLY thing you are doing on Holla. Most people do this battle while on their way to fight the Spire boss for Promyvion and do not want to waste any anima on it.

If you must use anima, I actually highly recommend using Terroanima at 50%. Basically, you can use Terroanima to rest up.

Generally speaking, if you are attempting a Spire Boss battle, you will want to also attempt an ENM. This is because, provided that you have reraise items or spells, if you lose you can get right back up and attempt the boss battle having lost no EXP or items.

Rewards

The most common rewards are clusters of memories. These are used in Alchemy synths. Not so common drops include various visions that can be used to create special earrings helpful to specific jobs. If you get a vision item, you can trade it back to Vanessa to obtain your earring.

The other reward from this ENM is Experience. The ENM gives 18,000 experience points divided amongst the members in your party. This means that if you go in with a party of 6, each member will get 3000 experience points.